S. Misanthrope Posted March 6, 2016 Posted March 6, 2016 Hello Freedomain! New user instructions said to introduce yourself here, so here we go! Biographical: I was born and raised in Southern California. I studied mathematics and economics at the University of Chicago for undergrad, then moved to San Francisco to work as an actuary. That's been my profession for about 10 years now. I love my job, hate San Francisco. I've been married for 7 years with no plans to reproduce (sorry, Stefan!) Philosophical: I read Atlas Shrugged in high school and called myself an Objectivist after that. Most of my friends continue to be Objectivist (or at least Objectiv-ish), including my husband and my BFFs. A couple of years after college, though, I became strongly bothered by Rand's example of voluntary taxation. Specifically, while rights are inherent for each individual, the protection of those rights by police/military requires other people to act. How was it fair to essentially overcharge corporations in exchange for contract enforcement in order to provide "free" protection of other rights to those who haven't paid for that protection? Your right to life makes sense; your right to someone else protecting your life doesn't. A few more years passed, and it also started to bother me that this contract enforcement, which is apparently not a fundamental enough right to be protected for "free" by the government, couldn't voluntarily be enforced by the private sector. Further, government would have to already exist in order to physically stop such voluntary enforcement, if it arose. For the government to be able to do that, it would have to already have resources, which means the taxation couldn't possibly have been voluntary to begin with! Interestingly, one of my close friends had the same thought process around the same time. He ended up concluding that forced taxation was moral. I ultimately came around to anarcho-capitalism (thanks almost exclusively to Stefan). We both stopped calling ourselves Objectivists. Because I have friends who pursue philosophy as a profession, I describe my own interest in philosophy as "moderate." Mostly I just want sound principles for governing my own life. Rand gave me a lot of that; it's not an exaggeration to say she saved my life. My political departure from Objectivism is significant, however, and I want to test further other aspects of it so that I can reintegrate my thinking. I'm outspoken regarding morality and politics, so I'd better make sure I'm speaking the truth! To that end, I started studying Stefan's books and joined this community. From my short perusal of the threads here, I'm very excited to be engaging with the folks here. I look forward to getting to know everyone! One more thing: I owe a huge, huge debt to Stefan (and Mike! and the other employees whose names I don't know!) for the work he's done. The rate of content production is astounding on its own, and the quality is tremendous. Thank you! I've enjoyed paying down some of that debt through donations, but I'm really excited to start contributing through truth-telling of my own. 3
csekavec Posted March 6, 2016 Posted March 6, 2016 Hello! I've never been able to get an understanding why orthodox Objectivism makes so many good metaphysical and ethical arguments for anarchism but yet upon reaching politics ignores it all and basically asserts that the only 'rational' course is to cede our rights to a monolithic state.
S. Misanthrope Posted March 6, 2016 Author Posted March 6, 2016 Hello! I've never been able to get an understanding why orthodox Objectivism makes so many good metaphysical and ethical arguments for anarchism but yet upon reaching politics ignores it all and basically asserts that the only 'rational' course is to cede our rights to a monolithic state. Forgive us for we know not what we do! Just kidding. For myself, I can say that I had a deep-seated fear of other people that I intellectually would have articulated as "violence is part of human nature." Understanding the extent of the violence involved in child-rearing and education, as well as meeting a few peacefully raised children who are so competent and virtuous that they almost seem like another species, opened my eyes to the possibility of a non-violent society, something my younger self (the self that was still close to the bullying on the playground, the cruelty of other violently raised kids, and the [mostly verbal] lashings of my own parents) would have dismissed as utopian. There's more to it than that in terms of the general psychology of the Objectivist community, which incidentally is currently on full, hideously glorious display regarding the Trump phenomenon, but I think at root the resistance to anarchy is largely explained by the same deep scars everyone else has from being born into violence. If there are others around with a similar philosophical background, I'd be interested to hear their theories!
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